This application relates to tools for driving threaded fasteners and the like and, in particular, to sockets and associated driving tools such as ratchet wrenches, breaker bars and the like.
Typically, fastener driving sockets have a driving end with a driver receptacle, typically square in transverse cross section, and a driven output end with a fastener-receiving receptacle, which may have any of a number of polygonal shapes, such as square, hex, double hex and the like. Typically, sockets are provided in sets with different sizes for respectively driving different-sized fasteners. Socket sizes vary with the size of the fastener to be driven. Typically, both the length and the diameter of a socket will change, as will the depth of the fastener-receiving and driver-receiving receptacles, in order to provide adequate strength. Certain of these dimensions are standardized by industry standards-setting organizations.
In certain applications it has become desirable to utilize somewhat shortened sockets to provide additional clearance in tight work spaces. Heretofore, this has been accomplished by shortening the depth of the fastener-receiving receptacle. This has been relatively easy to accomplish, since, typically, the standard fastener-receiving receptacle depth is substantially greater than the axial thickness or height of the standard fastener for which it is sized, in order to allow clearance space, such as when driving a nut onto a stud or bolt. But the shortening which can be effected in this manner necessarily reduces the available clearance space.